Calendar
In the wake of the eviction of First They Came for the Homeless, the information booth, et al, Berkeley Post Office Defenders will gather to discuss the event and possible responses.
Should be illegally run off the Post Office steps we will (re)convene in MLK park (Allston & MLK).
On Saturday April 16, 2016 the African People’s Education and Defense Fund (APEDF) will hold an annual health-fair entitled “Health is Freedom”, at Akwaaba Hall in the Uhuru House, 7911 MacArthur Blvd, in East Oakland from 11:00 am to 4:30 pm.
There will be food, culture, vendors, live music, free health resources and screenings. End the health and economic disparities in Oakland! Support black community self – determination, justice, health and economic development.
We will be gathering signatures for our three endorsed ballot measures for 2016: the Protect Oakland Tenants Initiative, sponsored by Oakland Tenants Union and the Citywide Development Network, the charter amendment to create a police commission sponsored by the Coalition for Police Accountability, and the measure to establish a $20 minimum wage by 2020 and enforce fair scheduling regulations from the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly.
Check out this cheat sheet on how to collect signatures, and contact info@oaklandjustice if you are interested in gathering signatures independently. We encourage our member organizations to host their own canvasses. For your reference, quick talking points on the three measures are in the cheat sheet linked above and listed below:
Rent Stabilization Measure
- Set limits on rent increases tied to the Consumer Price Index (inflation)
- Close loopholes in the current Just Cause Eviction Ordinance to prevent no-fault evictions
Minimum Wage / Fair Scheduling Measure
- Raise minimum wage to $14/hr in 2017, slowly increasing to $20/hr by 2020
- Create and enforce rules for worker scheduling and on-call requirements, so that workers’ lives will not be turned upside down by continually changing work schedules
Police Commission Measure
- Establish civilian oversight of our Police Department
- The Commission will be able to investigate police misconduct, review complaints and discipline officers. If progress toward reform is not being made, they will have the authority to fire the police chief
Monica Moorehead, Presidential candidate of Workers World Party , and John Parker, candidate for US Senate of the Peace and Freedom Party and west coast leader of Workers World Party from LA, will be in Oakland to speak about what a real socialist program looks like and why capitalism must be overturned. http://
https://
Also hear Clarence Thomas, former Secretary-Treas
See the pinned post with the WWP 10 point campaign program short form. We are participating in the elections to expose them, not because we believe the elections have any meaning.
The location of the meeting is significant, in and of itself, right next to Lil’ Bobby Hutton Park, named in memory of the youngest Black Panther Party member to be killed by the Oakland Police. The site is wheelchair accessible. Light refreshments will be served.
Join us for the Berkeley premiere of SOLD!
Based on the award-winning international bestseller by Patricia McCormick and inspired by a true account, SOLD tells the story of a 13 year-old Nepalese girl who is trafficked from a peaceful, rural village to the brothels of Kolkata, India. One extraordinary girl’s story becomes both a call to action and a testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit. Directed by Oscar winning filmmaker Jeffrey Brown, this extraordinary story illustrates the brutality of child trafficking, which affects millions of children around the globe every year.
Saturday, April 16th @ 4PM and 7PM shows
Q&A with filmmaker Jeffrey Brown
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LIVE FROM DEATH ROW
PHONE CALL FROM KEVIN COOPER FROM SAN QUENTIN !
Free this innocent man! END the Death Penalty NOW!
At the young age of 16, Mark Clements was wrongfully convicted for murder in Chicago when he was tortured into a false confession by the corrupt police precinct of Jon Burge. After serving 28 years toward the sentence of Life Without Parole, Mark was finally exonerated and released from prison. Mark is on a tour across the country to highlight cases of the wrongfully convicted in the fight to end the death penalty.
Join Mark Clements to hear about the VICTORY fight to win reparations from the city of Chicago for the torture of African American and Latino men by Chicago police. Please come and join Mark Clements at a gathering organized in Oakland to bring attention to the case of Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on death row in California
Featuring: the movie about the Police Torture in Chicago. Organizations welcome to come and table. Please contact us via email.
For info: contact: FreeKevinCooper@gmail.com www.Freekevincooper.org Facebook: FreeKevin Cooper
Oh snap! We’re gonna kick it off with hors d’ouvres and beverages, fundraiser-style. Will there be beer? Yes! Will there be wine? Yes!! Will there be non-alcoholic beverages? Yes!!!
And what are we asking from you? Your attendance, your good cheer, and your open wallet — because let’s face it, this is a fundraiser!
Let’s get down to discuss local politics, play party games, and raise money for the incredible Oakland Justice Coalition so that the OJC can pay for canvassers, window signs, and all the good stuff that makes for a winning grassroots political campaign.
We’re looking to put three ballot initiatives to the vote in November, and we need contributions to support our efforts. Those initiatives are for strong renters protections, a citizen-controlled police comission with real power, and finally, a higher minimum wage and workers’ scheduling rights.
See you there, social justice warriors!
Meaty Menu:
Chorizo black bean dip
Carnitas sliders with cilantro lime slaw, salsa verde and chipotle mayo
Coronation chicken sliders with chutney carrot slaw, coronation sauce and coriander mayo
Bulgogi sliders with daikon and jicama slaw, sweet and spicy sauce and ginger citrus mayo
For vegetarians:
Tomato and baby bell pepper tartlets with taleggio
Fingerling potato tartlet
Sundried tomato pesto palmiers with goat cheese spread
For Vegans:
Mediterranean Lentil Spread and tomato coulis on sourdough crostini
Hummus and baba ganoush with veggies and pita wedges
Brownie bites
Clementine upside down cupcakes
And other stuff that other people are bringing.
Donation jars will be scattered around for your pocket change. Andrew will be bar-raising, exchanging drinks for cash and of course, we’ll accept your checks and large folding money, too!
Agenda:
1 Recap/debrief/analysis of the April 5th City Council decision: Moratorium
2. Actionable next steps during 90 days
a Review of 12 points
b. What efforts are underway now?
c. What needs to happen?
d How do we support each other?
3. Immediate housing issues on the table
a Impact Fees
b. Renters’ Upgrade ballot initiative, now called the “Protect Oakland Renters” Initiative
c Others?
4 Next steps
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over four years! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally . Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
- Welcome & Introductions
- Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
- Announcements
- (Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
Presidential Candidates Forum hosted by the Alameda County chapter of the Peace and Freedom Party.
Confirmed speakers:
Gloria La Riva (Party for Socialism and Liberation) http://
Monica Moorehead (Workers World Party) https://
Lynn Kahn http://
Jill Stein* (Green Party) or her representative http://
John Parker (Workers World Party), Peace and Freedom Party candidate for U.S. Senate https://
—–
*The Secretary of State has refused to place Jill Stein on our primary ballot
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Liberated Lens is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, and organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
Join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually meet in our editing suite (2nd floor in the ballroom, to the left of the stage) and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
Celebrate a Step towards Economic Justice
Winning this in Berkeley strengthens the fight of working families throughout the bay.
Join Berkeley for Working Families as they turn in 150% of the required signatures to put an initiative on the November Berkeley ballot that will:
– Raise Berkeley’s minimum wage to $15 by October 2017
– Raise it further each year by 3% + inflation till it gets in sync with Berkeley’s official “Living Wage” – currently $16.37
– Bring sick leave up to the standards set by Oakland, Emeryville and SF
There is a deepening crisis in Berkeley and the Bay Area. Housing costs are skyrocketing and wages are just too low. Families work and work and still can’t make ends meet. Most new jobs are paying the lowest possible wages. The standards are just too low.
Working families need relief now.
“Dear President Obama,” narrated by actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, is a new film that reveals the true costs of Obama’s energy policy. Since 2008 under Obama’s watch, the drilling and fracking industries have boomed. As a result, today more than 20 million people live within a mile of an oil or gas well. Pro-drillers argued that this new “black gold” rush would create energy independence for the United States. Meanwhile, development of new renewable energy sources has stalled, and new threats are being posted to our water, environment and health.
Three years in the making, “Dear President Obama” documents the contamination of our environment, shares victims’ stories, exposes the false promises of an economic boom, and focuses on clean-energy solutions. This important film calls upon the president to change course away from fracking and toward a renewable energy future. Here in the Bay Area there are two screenings in Berkeley and San Francisco (as part of the Green Film Fest). The Berkeley screening is free. The film (running time 105 minutes) is followed by a panel discussion at both screenings.
SF PANEL DISCUSSION WITH: Jon Bowermaster, director/producer, “Dear President Obama“; Kassie Siegel, Senior Counsel, Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity; Mark Schlosberg, National Organizing Director, Food & Water Watch; hosted by Greg Dalton, Climate One.
BERKELEY PANEL DISCUSSION WITH: Jon Bowermaster, director/producer, “Dear President Obama”; Kassie Siegel, Center for Biological Diversity; Ella Teevan, Food & Water Watch; Kristy Drutman, UC Berkeley Student, Students Against Fracking campaign; hosted by UC Berkeley Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC).
Monday, April 18, 6 pm
FREE
“A lot of people don’t know much about Palestine or haven’t met a Palestinian,” Abdelrazaq said. “I hope this teaches people a bit, not just about the political situation, but the importance of the refugee situation.
“These are stories you’d hear from your parents over and over again, to the point where you’d say, ‘You can stop telling that story now,'” Abdelrazaq said. “All parents have those few stories. But while my father’s stories are common in Palestinian families, outside communities don’t hear them much. People react by saying, ‘Whoa, what?'” But mass displacement and ethnic cleansing, while weird to an American audience, is something many of us have experienced or have family members who have experienced.”
Q&A session to follow. Books available for purchase onsite.
Please note time: 7:00 – 8:30 PM
THIS ITEM SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE CITY COUNCIL’S AGENDA.
Come to the April 19 meeting of the Oakland City Council to tell them not to hire Environmental Science Associates (ESA) to review evidence about the dangers of shipping coal through Oakland’s bulk terminal. ESA is not the right choice to evaluate evidence about the health and safety dangers of coal. No Coal in Oakland will be proposing a better alternative.
ESA is notorious in the Bay Area for writing the Environmental Impact Review that gave the green light to Valero’s crude oil-by-rail project, which is now being contested in Benicia. Many critics, from environmental and community groups to the California’s attorney general, have called that review inadequate because it fails to fully report the many negative impacts the crude-by-rail project would cause. In addition, activists question ESA’s commitment to a fair review of the health and safety dangers of coal, pointing to the fact that the team they propose to do the review doesn’t include a single public health expert. No Coal in Oakland says the city should hire public health experts–not a consulting firm with a vested interest in maintaining a good relationship the fossil-fuel industry — to evaluate evidence about the dangers of coal.
The No Coal in Oakland campaign has been gathering huge support, including a growing grassroots movement of residents, Mayor Libby Schaaf, many local clergy and and labor leaders, newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, and State Senator Loni Hancock, who has introduced four bills in the California legislature restricting coal exports from the state. A recent poll by the Sierra Club showed that 76 percent of Oakland voters oppose exporting coal from Oakland. Thanks to all this support, opponents of coal exports persuaded the city council to pass a moratorium on issuing any permits for the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal until this question is resolved. And the council has signaled its intention to enact an outright ban on coal exports.
The focus of the campaign is an agreement the city signed with Phil Tagami’s California Capital and Investment Group to build and operate the terminal at the former Oakland Army Base. Tagami said he had no intention to export coal through the terminal. There was never any environmental analysis of the impacts of shipping coal or other fossil fuels through Oakland. Now he says the city has no right to control what commodities go out through the terminal and threatens to sue the city if it tries to block coal exports.
But the agreement specifies that the city can pass regulations to protect the health and safety of the community and workers if there is substantial evidence that not doing so would be dangerous. The No Coal in Oakland campaign and other groups have assembled extensive evidence from health and legal experts — more than enough evidence to justify banning coal on health and safety grounds. But the city wants to make sure it has solid justification as it faces a likely lawsuit.
The move to hire Environmental Science Associates stems from the city’s need to assemble strong evidence for banning coal. But hiring a consultant with a record of supporting fossil fuel developers against environmental concerns is not the way to go. No Coal in Oakland has an alternative proposal for reviewing evidence that will do a better job of providing the legal justification the city needs to act.
The city council was set to approve a contract with ESA on February 16, but before the council meeting, Mayor Libby Schaaf convinced the council members to postpone the contract vote “so that we may further evaluate other, potentially more effective options,” to bar coal shipments through Oakland. “I remain strongly opposed to the transport of coal and crude oil through our city,” Schaaf wrote in a press release that day.
Now a proposed contract with ESA is again on the table for the April 19 city council meeting. Strong public pressure is needed to tell the council to reject the contract with ESA and make sure the investigation of evidence is valid and unbiased. Come help push the No Coal In Oakland campaign over the finish line.
Please sign up to speak or waive time at
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/CityClerk/s/SpeakerCard/SpeakerCard/OAK032373
For Item, enter “coal” or “11.”
Check back for updates at NoCoalinOakland.org or email nocoalinoakland (at) gmail (dot) com
FIERCE GREEN FIRE: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change.
Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, director of Berkeley in the Sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep.
Mark Kitchell will be present for Q7A after the film.
doors open at 6:30pm, film starts at 7pm
